DDO Mobile Character Planner App

[king_vertigo]

OK, so, about a year ago, I had wondered about a DDO application for iPad (possibly on iPhone/Android??) that I could use to plan my character builds. After doing a little bit of forum searching, I'd found that there was no app on the market yet. I have a bit of computer science education from my high school classes and personal project. I was wondering how you guys feel about a DDO application for the iPad.

Now before moving on, I'd like to explain my reasoning behind a focus on iPads before any other device.

1. Display size - My vision of the app's UI is a lot better when thinking about producing on an iPad. An iPhone/iPod/Android would be more of a stretch (or should I say shrink) when it comes to making everything look good and being user friendly. I'm sure many of you are familiar with Ron's Character Planner available for Windows (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/427100-Character-Planner-Series-4-xx) and I'm pretty confident that I'd be able to produce an application like this for iOS.
2. My personal familiarity - I have zero experience with making applications for Android. I have been learning Xcode, however, and I'm pretty comfortable with the program language.
3. A tool for iOS users - Being a former Windows user, I feel the pain of Mac users who play DDO with the native Mac client. Those who use Bootcamp or some other program to allow Windows to run on their computer are not affected as much by the . However, I have had those moments when I wished I had a reliable program to plan my character builds on. There are a couple internet planners out there, but I don't feel like they are convenient or very user friendly.

Now, and exclusive iPad app is not set in stone.The application could be originally developed and released on the iPad and have other versions come at later times. So, I guess what I'm trying to ask is what do you guys think about the development of a DDO character planner application for the iPad? What are some other opinions you guys have about this application on other devices? And finally, would anyone really use this character planner?
This is an open discussion and any feedback is welcome. If you have any really quick questions(and you play on the Cannith server), you'll probably get a faster response if you send me an in-game tell(Valentina or Trielcice).

TL;DR -- Do you want a DDO character planner app for iPad & possibly other devices later on?

[Munkenmo]

Ive often lamented rons planner being tied to windows, my laptop runs ubuntu and ive never managed to get the planner running nicely through wine.

It would be a lot of work though, and if its restricted to ipads only, youll have a very small target audience. There are plenty of android tablets out there too (im posting from my note 8 right now). Even if you catered to both os' though, ddo is a small game, the html build planner closed not long ago I dont think theres a large enough audience to justify another planner.

If/when you ported to android I would try out your app, but I'm not sure this project would end up being the advertisment of your skills that you're hoping for.

[Silken-Akira]

actually besides the fact it would give players some extra functionality and all. It is these days the thing to do from a marketing viewpoint, getting your name out there. so I would expect the Turbine/Warner Bross to fling something out of there sleeve linked to the game. Saw in the past a kind of card trading game that linked stuff back to your profile in the maingame which was supersmart because the cardtrading game itself was kind of ok enough for casual play and even made money on it.

[sebastianosmith]

I have a bit of computer science education from my high school classes and personal project and I'm now 17 and getting ready to head off to college to study Computer Science.

...

TL;DR -- Do you want a DDO character planner app for iPad & possibly other devices later on?


Even if you catered to both os' though, ddo is a small game, the html build planner closed not long ago I dont think theres a large enough audience to justify another planner.

king_vertigo,

Just code. Code even when nobody thinks what you're coding will have any value whatsoever. Code because you have a passion for it. Otherwise, what's the point?

[OverlordOfRats]

A planner for tablets would be nice.

No iPad here, an Android Nexus 7 instead.

Have you considered contacting Ron about working with that team to make a tablet version?

[king_vertigo]

A planner for tablets would be nice.

No iPad here, an Android Nexus 7 instead.

Have you considered contacting Ron about working with that team to make a tablet version?

I actually have not contacted Ron about any of this. I'm not sure I'm on his coding level yet, but that's definitely something I'll look into.

[Seikojin]

Android 4 and later would be fine. Drop it on the google play store for free even and it will get a lot of hits.

[Ron]

I actually have not contacted Ron about any of this. I'm not sure I'm on his coding level yet, but that's definitely something I'll look into.
We'll give you the code for the 4.xx series version, if you want it. It's in C++ though, so you'd have to convert to whatever language you wanted to use, in addition to converting to tablet form. Just contact me on my forums and I'll set you up with access to the repo if you want. I understand if you want to try to code it from scratch (that's what I would do), but it's there if you want to look at it.

Keep in mind, the code there is like 10 years old. And was continuously added to, massaged, and reworked over the years. There is a reason we started over from scratch with the 5.xx series :)

The 5.xx series isn't ready yet. It wouldn't do you any good. Most of the code we've done is UI and database stuff, none of which would help you with a tablet version [in fact, even when completed, I'm not sure it would translate well to another platform, just because such a large percentage of the code are those two things. Actual data manipulation is a fairly trivial part of it, since a lot of the "logic" is embedded right in the database itself].

-Ron

[Spekdah_NZ]

Have you thought about making it an offline web application, using something like Angular JS. That way it would work on Android, iPhone, tablets, desktops etc. Also means you could wrap it up as an application and put in both stores, or just run it from a web browser.

[Elor_OnceDark]

I don't know how old this thread is, but I'm actually programming a character planner for android based systems atm.

The main problem seems to be to get all the Information about Prequesites and Stuff, since the wiki seems to be a little outdated at some points.

So if anyone has Information, where to get this Information ... I would appreciate the help.

Also I'm thinking about doing some kind of "equipment checklist" where you can plan your gear and get a list where the stuff drops.

[Purkilius]

I don't know how old this thread is, but I'm actually programming a character planner for android based systems atm.

The main problem seems to be to get all the Information about Prequesites and Stuff, since the wiki seems to be a little outdated at some points.

So if anyone has Information, where to get this Information ... I would appreciate the help.

Also I'm thinking about doing some kind of "equipment checklist" where you can plan your gear and get a list where the stuff drops.

New enough just throw your questions here and I bet someone can answer them gl :)

[Elor_OnceDark]

At the Moment I'm trying to find a good source of data, regarding feats and prequesites. The Wiki is OK but a bit confusing if you just hope for a list with the prequesites ;-)